Straight No Chaser - 12 Days

And if that doesn't put you in the holiday mood - how about trying good old fashioned giving until it hurts.... and I don't mean a fruitcake regifted from your Aunt Hatty. Try pulling out your checkbook and trying one of these:

• International Rescue Committee. More than 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes because of violence, at least 2.2 million within Iraq and 1.8 million to other countries. This venerable NGO assists them in Jordan and southern Iraq, where many are living in desperate conditions, and will soon expand to Syria and northern Iraq. These are people who, thanks to our unprovoked and illegal war, have lost everything. Remember the Pottery Barn rule? We broke it; we have to fix it (write "Iraqi refugee relief" on your check; IRC, Box 98152, Washington, DC 20090-8152; theirc.org).

• Vietnam Vets Against the War. It's a different war, but VVAW is still organizing against it. These hardy campaigners wage protests, support soldiers who resist the war, address classrooms, demystify the false promises of recruiters, help homeless veterans and support Iraq Veterans Against the War. They run on a shoestring, and Howard Zinn says we should send them money--and I always try to do what Howard Zinn says (VVAW National Office, Box 408594, Chicago, IL 60640; vvaw.org).

• Women for Afghan Women. Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries, where billions of development dollars have been wasted by a large cast of schemers. This group is different. Headed by the indefatigable Fahima Vorgetts, the WAW's Afghan Women's Fund provides material aid, healthcare and literacy classes, vocational training and organizes small businesses and women's co-ops. AWF has built three girls' schools and will be starting construction on a fourth in the spring. For $50 a month, you can support an orphan and give him or her a shot at a future (make checks out to WAW/AWF, 978 Yachtsman Way, Annapolis, MS 21403; womenforafghanwomen.org).

• Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq. The war has made life more dangerous for Iraqi women both inside and outside the family. Heroic secular feminist Yanar Mohammed runs the only women's shelters in Iraq, plus an Underground Railroad to help women escape from abuse and threats of "honor killing." You can help Iraqi women start newer, safer lives by writing a check to MADRE, the women's international social justice organization, with OWFI in the memo line; MADRE, 121 West 27th Street #301, New York, NY 10001; www.madre.org.

Many thanks to Katha Pollitt at the Nation for these suggestions. See more here.

Cardiac Arrest

Okay, so I've been having some issues with my blood pressure. Can't imagine why, since I'm so calm, cool, and collected in the face of Armageddon with Mr. Deciderer at the helm. And global warming. And recently relocating my business... while teaching a 12 week class... and mediating recent marital difficulties with Number One son and his lovely bride. Did I mention Christmas is like 2 and a half weeks away? Can't imagine why my BP decided to shoot for the moon, but I suddenly found myself listening to my pounding heart in my ears. Time to head to one of those fine American physicians that I get to choose for myownself.

So I go off to see the PA ($28 copay for the short visit,) who is aghast at the numbers on my very proactive little two week stat sheet and decides that yes, hallelujah, I am hypertensive and need medication. Shit. But wait there's more. She wants to rule out something other than "my magic hypertension gene has suddenly come to life" as a probable cause. So she writes up a referral to my friendly neighborhood vampire for a simple blood test. Cholesterol, fasting blood sugar and thyroid function to be exact.

I'm an obedient sort, so I head to the hospital first thing Monday morning to open a vein. Takes about 3 minutes from start to finish (I mean the one vial of blood thing, not the 45 minutes of check in and registration.) Less than a week later I get a tidy report that I'm perfectly healthy - except for the BP thing, of course. I'm popping my daily pill now and everything is going swimmingly until...

I have a heart attack when I get the f-ing bill.

So how much do you think simple lipids, blood sugar and thyroid tests cost? One vial of blood. Three minutes to stick me, probably another ten to add some chemicals and read the thing. We are not talking NUCLEAR MEDICINE here... we are not talking CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY. We are talking $299. My very expensive, for the self employed, high deductible, catastrophic coverage pays less than half of that. $160 to tell me I'm perfectly fine.

The kicker - and reason that I'm ranting - is this. The very same hospital offers two of those three tests for $50 AND throws in an EKG and calls it a "heart health screening." So when you hear someone ranting about frivolous lawsuits and how trial lawyers are the reason our health insurance rates are so spectacular, consider what those delightful, of our own choosing, health care providers are CHARGING those insurance companies. And be afraid.

Good thing I'm so healthy, since my plan is going up 33% in January.

Just Because I'm Paranoid...

doesn't mean they aren't out to get us. I know I've been a bit of a pansy with regard to our civil rights - you know how I rant about the Patriot Act and re-writing the Constitution and all. This government scares me, and I'm pretty much equally horrified by the fact that it doesn't scare everyone. But brother, if the past couple of weeks hasn't made you nervous, you'd better take your pulse.

Exhibit A - HR 1955 or the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” which flew through our House of non-Representatives by 404-6 and will probably slide right through the Senate with equivalent ease. The bill creates a commission with sweeping investigative power and a mandate to propose laws prohibiting whatever the commission labels “homegrown terrorism,”defined as “planned” or “threatened” use of force to coerce the government or the people in the promotion of “political or social objectives.” No force need actually have occurred as long as the government charges that the individual or group thought about doing it. I'm homegrown terrorist all the way as I'm constantly 'threatening' people with the loss of their humanity if they don't wake up and call for an end to this ridiculous and immoral war, a social objective if I ever heard one. Please write to me in prison. (By the way, good old Dennis Kucinich was one of the six Reps. who voted nay.)

Exhibit B - Look - up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a unmanned aircraft to spy on ordinary American citizens! Yes, in Houston (leave it to Texas!) the regular old police department is acquiring drones to watch your every move. After a super secret test flight was caught on tape by local news investigators (wow, I thought they were extinct!) the executive assistant police chief gave a hasty press conference saying that the drones would be used for "mobility" or traffic issues, evacuations during storms, homeland security, search and rescue, and also "tactical." These adorable mini spyplanes were developed by Insitu, Inc. a Washington state based company. Since we Washingtonians are all over buying local... I'm willing to bet our cops have some serious drone envy. And I'm curling up in a fetal position with my blankie....

Thanksgiving

“Our nation’s greatest strength is the decency and compassion of our people. As we count our many blessings, I encourage all Americans to show their thanks by giving back.” These are the words of our Fearless Leader - remarks made after a photo op at a DC food bank and that most important presidential tradition, the pardoning of the turkeys.

America has never been wealthier. In fact the number of people earning in excess of a million dollars annually has more than doubled in the last decade. And yet this week some 35.5 million Americans lined up at soup kitchens and food stamps offices to feed their families for the Thanksgiving holiday. As we sit down to our turkey dinners with all the trimmings, hundreds of food banks and pantries that put food on the table of the nation’s poor are staggering under the weight of increased need and sharply reduced donations. Part of the reason food banks are running low on supplies is the absence of direct government spending; we just hate spending taxpayers’ money on slackers when it could be better spent, you know, overseas.

Mike Curtain, executive director of DC Central Kitchen which provides hot meals for thousands, had this to say about the need and low donations. “I don’t think as a nation we are who we think we are. When I see the money wasted overseas in Iraq and knowing what it could do here, it makes me sick...People in the world hate us, and rightly so, because of the way we treat our own people,” he says. “Poverty would soon disappear if we invested some of that money on a living wage, healthcare and education. ”

Gee, Mike, that seems so un-American of you.

Thanks to Leonard Doyle of the Independent for this insight... read his whole article here.

I think that I shall never see...

In this era of global warming, rampant consumerism, and deforestation in the name of the god Profit... consider the ramblings of Henry David Thoreau...

Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light, - to see its perfect success; but most are content to behold it in the shape of many broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true success! But the pine is no more lumber than man is, and to be made into boards and houses is no more its true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to be cut down and made into manure. There is a higher law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a dead human carcass is a man. Can he who has discovered only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale? Can he who slays the elephant for his ivory be said to have “seen the elephant”? These are petty and accidental uses; just as if a stronger race were to kill us in order to make buttons and flageolets of our bones; for everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use. Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine-trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have been changed into a pine at last? No! no! it is the poet; he it is who makes the truest use of the pine, - who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane, - who knows whether its heart is false without cutting into it, - who has not bought the stumpage of the township on which it stands. All the pines shudder and heave a sigh when that man steps on the forest floor. No, it is the poet, who loves them as his own shadow in the air, and lets them stand. I have been into the lumber-yard, and the carpenter’s shop, and the tannery, and the lampblack-factory, and the turpentine clearing; but when at length I saw the tops of the pines waving and reflecting the light at a distance high over all the rest of the forest, I realized that the former were not the highest use of the pine. It is not their bones or hide or tallow that I love most. It is the living spirit of the tree, not its spirit of turpentine, with which I sympathize, and which heals my cuts. It is as immortal as I am, and perchance will go to as high a heaven, there to tower above me still.

We learn nothing from those who have gone before us.

This is who I'd vote for

well, if I had the chance and since the man I'd really like to vote for, Dennis Kucinich, has been marginalized because he is short and ethical. In a perfect world we'd have something more like a Kucinich / Anderson ticket and we could all go home happy. Anyway Rocky is my other guy...

Mayor Ross (Rocky) Anderson took Salt Lake City green. Not just green mind you, but Kyoto Protocol green. This guy has cojones. So check out this excerpt from his latest little speech...

"Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our
voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other
members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of
Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of
the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it
any more.

While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been
pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to
a moral, military, and national security abyss.

You have breached trust with the American people in the most
egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs.
You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most
fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.

You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of
the sort never before countenanced in our nation’s history as a matter of
official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be
killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications, without
competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental
blunder.

We are here to tell you: We won’t take it any more!"

Gives you shivers, doesn't it? Read the rest.

Orwell in 2007 by Robert Weiner

"In “1984,” the novel that most baby boomers read in high school, George Orwell creates a theoretical modern-day government with absolute power — a state in which government, called the Party, monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even having a disloyal thought is against the law...

In “1984,” the Party barrages citizens with psychological stimuli designed to overwhelm the mind. The giant telescreen in every room monitors behavior. People are continuously reminded of government’s surveillance, especially by omnipresent signs reading, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” Individuals are encouraged to spy on each other, even children on their parents, and report any instance of disloyalty to the Party — i.e., government.

“1984″ is happening in 2007.

Signs along interstate highways urge citizens, “Report Suspicious Behavior.” Cameras mounted at strategic locations monitor our everyday movement (just as in the novel). Red, orange and yellow are no longer just bright, pretty colors: They now represent levels of national security alerts. Intelligence agencies now define “chatter” as “terrorist speak.”

The Party in “1984″ uses psychological manipulation to make citizens “doublethink” — hold two contradictory ideas contrary to common sense.

Back to 2007: The Patriot Act by its very name defies individuals to disagree with it, for to do so would be “unpatriotic.”

The Patriot Act was passed hastily in October 2001, under a cloak of fear in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Some of the fundamental changes to American’s traditional legal rights include:

Establishing a huge surveillance system on millions with no court approval, without probable cause.

Holding citizens indefinitely without access to the courts or counsel.

Monitoring library withdrawals and Internet communications.

Taping attorney-client communications.

Creating a national system for citizens to monitor and report on each other, regardless of reason, including paranoia or ethnic bias.

Developing a massive computer system to monitor every purchase.

Creating a national identification card.

The new federal court rulings are a step forward against threats to our freedom — as were other recent court rulings against the Bush administration’s contention that the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture were “obsolete” and “trite” and against our secret holding of prisoners abroad without due process.

9-11 was real, as the recent videos by Osama bin Laden confirm now more than six years after he attacked us. However, that fact does not allow playing on our fears and increasing our paranoia about our personal safety. Sen. Joseph McCarthy tried that with Communism in the 1950s. The administration has tried to condition the American people, just as Pavlov did with his dogs.

Congress is now revisiting the legality of the Patriot Act, warrantless surveillance programs, torture of prisoners in secret prisons and barring detainees from counsel and knowing the charges against them. By law, in the next few months, Congress must renew, change or end the Patriot Act and surveillance programs."

Robert Weiner was a Clinton White House public affairs director and spokesman for the U.S. House Government Operations Committee. Read the whole article here.

Watcha think? Will the worst Congress ever repeal the Patriot Act? Or have we kissed our Constitution goodbye already? You know where my money is.

By the way, for a more modern take on the joys of Orwellian government I invite you to enjoy these films - V for Vendetta, based on a comic book or the German film, The Lives of Others.

The President Of Hypocrisy

oooooh, you gotta see this. It's amazing that Keith Olbermann hasn't had an unfortunate accident after this scathing smackdown of the Deciderer in Chief. A little fearlessness in the media is refreshing....

Crooks and Liars » Countdown Special Comment: The President Of Hypocrisy

Shouting Underwater by Walter Mosley

"We are coming up on the two-year mark since the Katrina debacle in Louisiana and Mississippi. I hesitate to call this date an anniversary because the word implies, in some way, a celebration, a birth. What we are scratching on the calendar is more like a notch on a raw gravestone, a count of the days and years that have passed without a reckoning for those who died, those who lost loved ones and for a city that is still in critical condition.

Not only did our government fail to answer the call of its most vulnerable citizens during that fateful period; it still fails each and every day to rebuild, redeem and rescue those who are ignored because of their poverty, their race, their passage into old age.

The disaster named after the hurricane is not confined to the areas affected. Every emergency room, empty bank account and outsourced life's work could be named. We live in a country rife with ignored and condemned poverty. The rich, high on their great corporate steeds, ride over us believing that they are out of the reach of global warming and its symptoms, of terrorism and dwindling natural resources. When government officials tell them to evacuate, they drive their cars, board their corporate jets or simply climb to higher ground with ease. At this very moment they are looking down on Baghdad and New Orleans, Pakistan and Sudan, you and me. The feeling of invulnerability that these people have is unfounded, but nonetheless it makes them reckless. They take chances and cut corners believing that everything will come out all right. Their delusions of grandeur and ultimate power put us in ever more dire straits.

If we call ourselves Americans (and mean it), then we are all victims of Katrina. If we breathe the air or eat fresh fruit, if we call on our cellphones, drink water from a plastic bottle or just nibble on a chocolate bar, then we are Katrina; we are the rising waters around the ankles of this world.

When the day comes to mark off the two-year point since the deluge descended on the Gulf of Mexico, we should take care not to make too much noise. We shouldn't march in that shadow of time or even protest. Rather, we should sit alone in a room with our imaginations open to feel what they experienced on that day: the waters rising, rising and us climbing stairs and ladders, chairs and fire escapes; sitting on rooftops while bodies float by; calling out to passing boats and helicopters that go by in mute witness; being pressed to the roof by the rising tide and being engulfed shouting, shouting out for the ones we love underwater, unheard; the darkness swirling around us as we die with no one coming to save us, or themselves.

Two years have passed and Americans are still displaced, waters are still rising. Wars are raging and we are waiting for a day to vote for a man or a woman who works, not even in secret, for the rich. We wait for this man or woman to lead us out from the disaster like chattel. We feel sorry for the victims as so many felt sorry for Rodney King, not realizing that his defeat was our loss; the blows that rained down on him were also aimed at our freedom, our ability and feeling of responsibility to fight back. Two years have passed and the dead are still dead and the dying are still dying. The clouds gather like angry anthropomorphic gods, and we stumble and fall unable to make a stand or lend a hand or protest all the victims in ghettos, retirement homes, prison wards and dark skins.

Two years have passed and we are still exporting democracy while we continue living under the semibenevolent oligarchy of international corporations and their candidates. This two-year point measures how far we have sunk under the weight of the rich and their political flunkies--while so many of us still celebrate them as if they were pop stars. We experience the silence of drowning men and women. We call out and are not heard. We believe in systems and people who have no faith in us. We perpetuate the rising temperatures and waters and hatred and feelings of hopelessness. New Orleans's defeat is also our defeat. Its closed schools are a metaphor for our minds and our futures. We see the storm's passage but we don't see it coming. But it is coming. And there are no leaders, no corporations, no benevolent billionaires who are going to save our grandmothers and our babies. We must unite outside of the systems that lie like fast food heaped on golden platters at our feet. We must organize at the ground level, where the water has already begun to rise. "

I'm sharing this article because I couldn't have said it any better.

Hurricane Strength: Category 5 (=156 mph)

Landfall: August 23, 2005 in the Bahamas and the Gulf Coast of the United States

Human Cost: At least 1,836 fatalities, thousands of people displaced from their homes

Damage: $81.2 Billion (USD)

and we're still bleeding....

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

This is just too good not to share:

On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide.

He left a note to that effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended" is still defined as committing suicide. Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below at street level, but his suicide attempt probably would not have been successful because of the safety net. This caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.

The room on the ninth floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously, and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking Mr. Opus.

When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was his long standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident, that is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.

The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was in fact Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over both the loss of his financial support and the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth-story window. The son had actually murdered himself, so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

This famous tale is hypothetical and was told to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences by Don Harper Mills in 1987... but it had you going, didn't it?

the American Dream

Could you live on $833 a month? in Seattle, the average rent is $869 so you'd be a little shy. But that is the amount you need to exist on to be considered poor in America. That in mind, the stat that one in ten Americans live in poverty seems a tad on the low side. It's all in how you define poverty. And the US government says that an individual lives in poverty if they make below $10,000 a year. Or $833 a month.

Keeping in mind the interesting definition, consider this: 20% of Hispanic people, 24% of black people and 28% of single mothers live below the poverty line. In America. Think about that for a second. One fifth of Hispanics (not illegals, because you have to be a citizen to make these stats,) nearly a quarter of black folks and almost a third of single mothers try to make ends meet on virtually nothing. In America.

23 million Americans seek food from food banks annually. 13 million American children wonder where there next meal is coming from. We're spending $720 million a day in Iraq. A day.

Wake the hell up, America. Some 75% of Americans identify themselves as Christian. Are these your family values?

Speaking of Our Fearless Leader

I was kidding when I suggested that Bush might appoint himself Grand Dictator of the Universe. However, I'm one of those cynical folks who wouldn't be all that surprised if it turned out that George had decided to stay on after the party ends. Now I know you're thinking that the first Lame Duck to really deserve that moniker is gone come November 2008. Some folks are even counting the days (1 year, 4 months, 28 days.... and change.) But let's not forget that George is pretty damn comfortable with the idea that the rules don't apply to him.

Let's talk signing statements. Bush loves them. I think he's hovering around 600 constitutional challenges to laws enacted by Congress. Now George doesn't try to fight city hall by using his constitutional right to veto... heck no. He just adds an addendum that states that the law doesn't apply to him. This gives our Prez the ability to effectively rewrite the laws by reinterpreting how the law will be implemented. Nifty huh? So is it so outrageous to think that maybe silly old term limits don't apply to him either?

Then there's the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. Basically as of May 9th, if George determines a catastrophic emergency has occurred, he can "take over all government functions and direct all private sector activities to ensure we will emerge from the emergency with an enduring constitutional government." Feeling safer now? Reaching for the Tums?

Let's face it, the idea that George might wish to maintain his little fiefdom post term isn't his alone. There was that little upstart idea of repealing the 22nd Amendment (embarrassing that 6 of the 8 sponsors in the House were Democrats... ouch.) And democracy is so obviously a terrible form of government - letting the popular opinion of the unwashed masses sway a leader from his God appointed task of bringing the world to it's knees... well that would be like listening to a focus group. A horribly liberally biased focus group. (There are actually people who believe this. There are actually people who believe the world is flat.)

And just because we haven't had an untainted presidential election in eight years, doesn't mean that this one won't be completely up and up. This is a DEMOCRACY - by the people, for the people and all that. They've fixed all that questionable election type stuff, touch screens, chads, and all. Right? Right. Well.......

Rant o' the Day - Death in America

Seems in the waning days of his Presidency (assuming he doesn't appoint himself Grand Dictator of the Universe) it seems our Fearless Deciderer in Chief is thinking of a legacy. Well, when things aren't looking too rosy, you should probably revisit the things that you know. So Bushie reached back, way back, to the grand glorious days of being Governor (his approval rating was a bit better back then) when he made himself memorable by killing off some 152 people. I guess you could say presiding over more executions than any other elected official in the history of the US of A makes a guy memorable.

Seems the Department of Justice will be overseeing how the states implement their appeals process in death penalty cases. (What would they do without that Patriot Act?) So warming to the task, he's set up his favorite legal mind to get the ol' killing machine a rolling. Good old Alberto. You'd think he'd have better things to do than fast tracking people to their lethal injection, what with all that fuss about firing attorneys and such. But back when they were a team in Texas, it rarely took these two more than 30 minutes to thumbs up an execution. I imagine Gonzales can fit that in between indictments.

But wait. Didn't Bushie just declare January 19th as the National Sanctity of Human Life Day? Thousands dead in Iraq and 152 Americans to boot. Now that's a legacy.

Get a(nother) Job

Back to the lack of gray matter, folks. A couple of pharmacists here in good ol' Washington State are suing said state for violating their civil rights by insisting that they actually do the job they are paid to do. It seems that providing emergency contraception forces them to choose between "their livelihoods and their deeply held religious and moral beliefs." Awwww.

Catch a clue, boys. If your deeply held religious beliefs make you uncomfortable doing the job, get another job. Don't ask someone else to sacrifice for you. YOU make the sacrifice for your deeply held beliefs. Nobody held a gun to your head and said "be a pharmacist." Maybe you made a poor career choice. Happens all the time. I suggest you move on.

When did we get the "right" to essentially force personal religious beliefs on other people? Don't want to touch pork? Don't take a job at the deli. I doubt that a whole lot of Jehovah's Witnesses work for Starbucks. Come to think of it, what's a deeply moral person such as yourself doing working in a business that's screwing hardworking Americans left, right and central anyway? Seen "Sicko" yet? When Americans pay $100 for a med that costs about 20 cents in Cuba, I'd say you're pretty much working for Satan anyway.

And while we're at it, let's take a look at some of those prescriptions you fill without feeling that it violates your deeply held religious beliefs. How about Viagra? I doubt that the majority of those prescriptions are for procreation. Feel okay with promoting lots of possible fornication or adultery? What about methadone? How do you feel about giving addicts their fake heroin? The point is, it's none of your business. Check for interactions, count the pills, ring it up. If you believe that contraception is tantamount to murder, don't use it. Worry about your own soul. I'll worry about mine.

Rant o' the Day - THE WAR

I have trouble with irrational behavior. I'm one of those people who truly believes that the presence of large amounts of gray matter in a mammal should imply a certain degree of higher intelligence. Regardless of loads of evidence to the contrary, I hold to the idea that we are a sentient species. So with regards to this insanity in Iraq, I just keep saying, "WTF?"

I just finished this rather lengthy article in The Nation. Yep, it seems that it is up to, like, one, non-mainstream (I'm the only person I know that reads it, makes it non-mainstream in my book) periodical to bother to amass and chronicle what the vets are really saying. The Nation interviewed 50 combat veterans from around the States and actually documented what they said about how American soldiers are enduring what psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton calls an "atrocity-producing situation." You think? Let's see - take a bunch of testosterone poisoned, wet behind the ears teenagers, amped and armed, underpaid, scared shitless and unsure if they're ever going to see home again and add tense checkpoints, futile house to house searches, endless high speed convoys through streets full of IED's, no understanding of the culture or language of the people around them, no way to know who's an enemy - and you expect maybe it's going to be all sunshine and puppies?

You know what? No one in the anemic "peace movement" wants to beat up the vets a'la Vietnam. But we're doing that doomed-to-repeat-it thing again, in spades. People are DYING over there. Lots and lots of grandmothers and babies and women and children. And nobody over here gives a rat's ass as long as it's over there and we can still watch Dancing with the Stars with our Lean Cuisine. You can barely get a good American interested in OUR casualties. (Vietnam was the same until the draft - nobody cares if only poor boys are dying. And we're still dealing with the PTSD of that war.)

Back to my original problem with irrational behavior. What has happened to the gray matter in this country? When did Americans get so looney? When did rational people start believing that a little sandlot of a country was a threat to AMERICA THE HEAVILY ARMED? Why can't we just leave? Huh? Want a hint? Read this.

The weaker sex...

So is it really so hard to figure why men still die sooner than women? (Actually, in the US the mortality gap is widening.) Come on, we can ponder their genetic material, ruminate on hormones and aggression, and be empathetic to their lack of support systems, but let's call a lunkhead a lunkhead. Men die on average 7-8 years before their wives - of stupidity.

Let's consider. Joe is getting a little thin on top and a little thick around the middle. Joe regularly has an elephant sitting on his chest and gasps like a beached flounder walking up a flight of stairs, but he smokes like a chimney and can't drive past a MickeyD's. Joe thinks he's a studly guy. Joe thinks he's in peak form. Joe's delusional and due to croak of a massive 'insert your cardiovascular accident here.' But truth be told, Joe could be bleeding out of his eyeballs and he wouldn't go to the doctor if his life depended on it. What irony.

In the mental world of males, I suppose there are things that pass for rationales for this behavior. Surely a routine check up might make casual bystanders think that Joe has a problem (translation - can't get it up.) And then there is the actual chance that said routine checkup could uncover an actual illness (translation - impending death.) And, of course, my personal favorite - it would be an act of submission - to her (translation - if the wife wants me to go, I must resist to appear, you know, manly.) The experts say that getting his fat butt to the doc is usually up to her. Lucky girl!

Pay up the life insurance, ladies.

Under Construction

I'm hooked. I'm addicted to spending my wee hours tapping on my frigging computer. Doesn't matter if anybody's reading these things - I'm writing again for the first time in years and it feels so good I don't want to stop. Kinda like an itch that's needed scratching for some time. It's a pleasure to know I can rant somewhere other than in my head.

What this blog will be is anyone's guess. Sort of a potpourri of crap in my overactive mind. Thoughts that don't fit a genre, wandering ideas, rants of the first degree. Musings. Life, as I see it, is interactive. I want a place to digest, a place to dissect, a place to disseminate. This will be it. We'll see how it goes.